I first logged in here in April 2015 but haven't been back since (too much else on my plate, water district manager dealing with the California drought). Can't remember what I wrote then. I'm new to this forum but not to T4Rs - bought my first one in 1988, loved it, ran it until it got stolen in January 2015, immediately bought another. I'm an old coot (84 next month), hunter, field biologist, SCUBA instructor, many other interests. My experience with 4WD vehicles began in 1948 with an ex-military Dodge Power Wagon - then long gap, then Sahara crossing 1965 in Land Rovers, all over West Africa mostly in Land Rovers, but also a Citroen 2CV, because of its light weight amazingly capable in the back country of the Niger Republic. Then Saudi Arabia in 1970, when my company vehicle was, you guessed it, a Dodge Power Wagon with 16.00x16 balloon tires. I actually managed to get that one stuck once (in tideflat mud, better not to ask how we recovered it ahead of the advancing tide . . . donkey power . . .). Personal vehicles in that time were Land Rovers, then Range Rovers (the basic 4 on the floor 1970s model, not the yuppie machine it has become in the U.S. - in those days cars still had carburetors and you could tune them by the side of the road if you had a good ear and a length of rubber tubing <G>). Also original Toyota Land Cruisers (not then the large SUV they later became, but a basic jeep type with the straight-6 Chevy-copy engine). Even a Suzuki (that didn't last long, too small and uncomfortable for 2 adults, 2 dogs and a couple of falcons on a desert hunting trip <G>). On return to the U.S. bought my first T4R - I needed a vehicle that could take me to off-road diving sites and provide reasonably secure lockup for students' gear while we were in the water. That T4R travelled coast to coast and back 5 times (we lived in Rhode Island back then), towed behind an antique Airstream motor home, and carried me and my dogs on many hunting trips in Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Wyoming. It served us very well for more than 400K miles, until it was stolen and trashed in January 2015. The one I bought to replace it is a 1990 T4R SR5, 3.0 V6, 5-speed manual, equipped with 33x12.50R15LT Mud Terrain ProComp tires (the previous owner was a bear hunter) with a bit over 340K miles on the clock. I have just dropped a brand new remanufactured engine (no aftermarket parts) into it. On the whole it is in amazingly good shape (the previous 2 owners obviously took good care of it) but I will probably have some picayune questions about how to do this or that.
I don't do "off road" as a hobby (though I do enjoy it immensely <G>) but in the line of work - which has taken me to many parts of the U.S., more or less all over Europe (from Norway north of the Arctic Circle, to Spain, and everything between), North and West Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East (Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan), Saudi Arabia (15 years), and Australia (mostly the "outback" of North Queensland). It's been fun, and I'm not looking to quit just yet <G>.
I don't do "off road" as a hobby (though I do enjoy it immensely <G>) but in the line of work - which has taken me to many parts of the U.S., more or less all over Europe (from Norway north of the Arctic Circle, to Spain, and everything between), North and West Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East (Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan), Saudi Arabia (15 years), and Australia (mostly the "outback" of North Queensland). It's been fun, and I'm not looking to quit just yet <G>.
